Villains and depth in videogames
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I'm really surprised no one mentioned the Illusive Man. Sure he's helping you fight the Collectors, but its for his agenda and his alone. He may not be an antagonist in ME2, but he is a damn fine villain.
And he smokes so he is evil incarnate, haha!
And he smokes so he is evil incarnate, haha!
Iago? Complex? His entire motivation is jealousy of Othello, and for that he wrecks everyone's shit while basically admitting "I do it because I'm a complete bastard." He is cartoonishly evil.
Really, if he's anywhere near the baseline, you won't have far to look for decent video game villains. He's frankly outclassed by, say...Yggdrasil and Richter from the Tales of Symphonia games, Baelheit from Baten Kaitos Origins, or Kotomine from Fate/Stay Night.
Really, if he's anywhere near the baseline, you won't have far to look for decent video game villains. He's frankly outclassed by, say...Yggdrasil and Richter from the Tales of Symphonia games, Baelheit from Baten Kaitos Origins, or Kotomine from Fate/Stay Night.
What you are referring to is foreshadowing. Saren isn't the one that gets angry, Sovereign is, which is represended by all the lighting going red and flashing irregularly. The whole point was that Saren was just acting as Sovereign's mouthpiece the entire time. It's one of those things you see, but don't properly understand until you're on your second playthrough, and you're like "Oh, how did I miss that?".poiumty said:
Methinks thou hast misinterpreted much.NeutralDrow said:
Anyway I'm not going to go rewriting past essays right here but you've grossly over-simplified Iago's character.
How is that oversimplified? He gets passed up for a promotion he thought he deserved more and doesn't like Othello and Desdemona's relationship. However complex his actual actions are, his motives are either just that simple (i.e. his own soliloquized words), or completely unexplained.AnonymousTipster said:
The antagonists are (in my opinion) vey often much more interesting that the protagonist, i think games should go into more detail about the villains story.
OT: i don't really know, so i'll just say Liquid, it seems his lot in life was determined before birth, genetically cursed yet he overcomes his birth right and becomes very powerful.
OT: i don't really know, so i'll just say Liquid, it seems his lot in life was determined before birth, genetically cursed yet he overcomes his birth right and becomes very powerful.
Oh you XDThaius said:
Playing through Heavy Rain with my girlfriend, so thanks for the no spoilers =D (Finally got a PS3, and it's backwards compatible ^^)
I would have to nominate Dracula from the Castlevania games, no matter how many times you defeat the bugger, he always comes back.
Why not? Is there a guide book to being a villain/antagonist? Not all of them are the John Travolta "I'll remain calm in all situations" type. The scene however, when I first saw it, made me laugh nervously XDpoiumty said:
The problem with video game villains is that either they're too evil to be believable or they become such good characters that the designers wimp out and turn them into anti-heroes during the final battle. A few of you mentioned Logain, who perfectly mirrors this: he's a mostly-decent guy who thought his king was a glory-seeking nutjob, decided he wasn't quite ready to die and pulled his forces out of what was already a losing battle. If he hadn't pushed the blame on the Grey Wardens then chances are the heroes would've let him keep the throne and plan a more successful attack. And even then, when you've publicly humiliated him in front of the nobles you can decide to forgive everything and let him join up.
As far as good villains go, I'd have to say the Templars from Assassin's Creed. Sure they have their "cartoonishly evil" moments but as a group they betray each other and seek to usurp the power of the gods while enslaving humanity through ignorance. Any group that can last millennia and still have the same mission is a group that has plenty of secrets.
Another good non-standard villain...any dark-alignment Hero in the Fable series. Seriously, think about it: unlike other villains their goal is to save the world from their competition, and going into a random town to kill all the police officers is neither a long-standing objective or too cartoonish.
As far as good villains go, I'd have to say the Templars from Assassin's Creed. Sure they have their "cartoonishly evil" moments but as a group they betray each other and seek to usurp the power of the gods while enslaving humanity through ignorance. Any group that can last millennia and still have the same mission is a group that has plenty of secrets.
Another good non-standard villain...any dark-alignment Hero in the Fable series. Seriously, think about it: unlike other villains their goal is to save the world from their competition, and going into a random town to kill all the police officers is neither a long-standing objective or too cartoonish.
Nice to see somebody else agreeing with me on that point. One of the biggest flaws with the story in Mass Effect 2 was the lack of a clear villain. If you were going up against somebody instead of a chain of factions controlled by each other, that might actually have given the game some direction.Irridium said:
But then again, the problem with all Bioware villains is that no matter how good they are, they just aren't...
Now there is a villain! Just the sheer amounts of reasons he gives you to go after him and the equal amounts of reasons to convince you doing so is suicide is enough to make him one of the best video game villains ever. And that's only scratching the surface.poiumty said:
But I think Sarevok deserves a mention too. He may not be as interesting as a character, but I like how on one hand he needs to be stopped because he threatens the entire region, and at the same time his motives are connected to the personal struggles of your character. You go after him because he is big and evil, but in the en he turns out to be much more relevant to the story than you initially thought.
I would have liked her if her entire "Good deeds aren't the best solution" wasn't the entire story of the game.trooper6 said:
OT: I though that
So yeah, I guess Rapture is my answer...
Not all games have clear villains. Mask of the Betrayer lacked an obvious one and still ended up being quite great.Littaly said:
As for other villains...
How about the Shadow King from NWN 2? A hero still trying to protect the empire that spawned him?
And Kerghan from Arcanum. He was not even evil. He wanted to stop the suffering of souls.
Meh, from my perspective Iago was only seen as having depth because everyone else in Othello was boring. And I ignore your eyeroll and nominate Revolver Ocelot anyway. Why? I'm too lazy to explain.
GLaDOS, as far as I know, doesn't fit either of those categories. It's just a super-computer that lost its artificial mind.
(that's the best example I currently have, unfortunately)
(that's the best example I currently have, unfortunately)
Why does the villain always need to be clear and defined? There is an anime called "Death Note" in which a character kills people who are criminals in hopes to make a better world. His motives are pure but his actions aren't. Likewise, the detective trying to stop his has good motives to stop a serial killer, but takes bold and unconventional actions to get close to the killer. Neither one is pure good or pure evil in what the do. It's unclear, but the morality behind the series is left for the reader to figure on their own. I see nothing wrong with having an unclear villain.Littaly said:
I would say Wallace Breen from HL2 is one of the best examples of what you're looking for. He's the bad guy simply because the alternative is so much worse. He's definitely one of the most deep bad guys in gaming.AnonymousTipster said:
And I'll second the guy who said Saren. There's a lot going on there, and he's definitely an intriguing character.
You're trying to compare apples and robots here.SilverUchiha said:
The thing with ME2 wasn't that there was not a clear "bad guy", because it's quite obvious the Collectors are the bad guys. There's absolutely 0 moral confusion on who's right in the story.
The problem is that the story is very unfocused, largely because there was no single antagonistic figure to focus on. All you have is a collection of faceless mooks. It's much harder to build a coherent story out of that.